Reggaeton Singer Maluma Says Collab With Ziggy Marley Was Huge Boost For Career, Latin Culture

Colombian Reggaeton singer Maluma has hailed his collaborative single Tonika with Ziggy Marley on his 7 Días en Jamaica, (7 Days in Jamaica) album as a huge move for his career and Latin culture.

In a recent video interview with MTV News, Maluma spoke about his sojourn to Jamaica last October to do the album, and spoke glowingly about Ziggy, Miss Universe Jamaica Davina Bennett and Party Animal deejay Charly Black, who were all part of the album and its accompanying music videos.

According to Maluma, Ziggy’s father, Reggae icon Bob Marley is one of his favorite artists who “inspired me like crazy in this new album”, and because he had already been experimenting with various Dancehall and Reggae sounds since starting his music career, creating the album was not very difficult as “it was something that I already had in my DNA”.

In outlining his top five songs on the album, for which he teamed up with Jamaican producers and composers to create, Maluma said the Tonika video with Ziggy Marley was his number one.   Even though they did not get to film the video together due to COVID-19 safety concerns, Maluma raved about the final product.

“I love this video because having Ziggy Marley in the song was a dream come true… when I saw Ziggy performing and actually singing in Spanish, you know what it means for the Latin culture?  It is like a big, big deal having Ziggy Marley, having the Marley’s legacy… so that sure was big for my career but even more or the culture,” he said.

The album which was released two weeks ago also includes seven accompanying music videos some of them featuring steamy make-out sessions with the leading lady Davina Bennett.

It comes as no surprise that he said his second favorite video was Agua de Jamaica, while gushing about the beauty queen, who hails from Clarendon. Maluma said having a black woman representing Jamaica on the album was important to him and his quest to merge Jamaican and Latin cultures through his art.

“It’s one of my favourites, because it is romantic.  I am having like this beautiful moment on the beach with this beautiful girl who is Davina.  She’s such a beautiful person man; she’s such a  beautiful human being,” he said.

“I don’t remember when was the last time that I worked with a black girl.  And that was pretty important, because I wanted to mix cultures; I wanted to put Jamaica a hundred percent in the video and it worked.  You know, so for me it was pretty important to have both cultures and to show that we are powerful too,” he explained.

Aside from people and personalities, Maluma was also wowed by the ‘wining’ dance moves he saw being done by women in a club when he visited the island, which inspired his La Burbuja song which is actually about women wining or “bubbling’.

“That’s one of my favourites, because there is a lot of dance.  You can feel like a good, good vibe.  And I feel like this song could be global- a global song…the bubbling is this movement that we can see that is the La Burbuja.  There are these beautiful girls moving their bodies and that was so hot man…,” a delighted Maluma said.

The Sin Contrato artist said Charly Black who had taken him and his crew to the club, was the one who suggested he voice a song about bubbling after he returned to the hotel which they were staying and asked the Bike Back artist about the sexy dance movements.

“After we got from the party, we got to the house and we were like ‘bro what’s the name of the dance move’ and he told us the ‘bubbling’,” he said adding that he subsequently asked for an appropriate rhythm and voiced the song.

Peligrosa in which he figuratively killed his ego, was another favourite of the Columbian, as was Love, which featured Charly Black.

“He is such a cool guy,” Maluma said of the Trelawny native.

“He was like my guide there in Jamaica.  He was like with us 24/7showing us the island; showing us his culture, their favourite foods and everything.  So Charly put like this beautiful magical touch to the video and to the whole concept of the album,” he explained.

Most of the album’s music videos were shot on the island of Barú in Colombia, which has a few similarities to Jamaica. A few scenes were shot in sections of Kingston and Portland.  The videos were also placed in one 24–minute compilation with the transitions between each song.

In explaining how he walked away with a new EP which also features the tracks Desayun-Arte and Chocolate, after just seven days on the Caribbean island, Maluma told MTV News that he took an entire crew, who started documenting the experience from day one.

“When I went to Jamaica I was looking for the concept – the whole concept of the album so on  Monday we did the first song, then on Tuesday we did the second song.  It was like a whole experience making the album in seven days.  So at the end of the album I named the album Seven days in Jamaica because that was actually the experience,” he said.